Achieving Palpable Relief
Hi There,
As much as some things change (like the evolution of hybrid work and the slowly growing commitment to making DEI part of cultural DNA), other things tend to stay the same. I’m thinking specifically about the enigma of email.
As I looked back over DRIVEN’s 10-year history, email has been a consistent pain point for our clients. The wise words of my friend and colleague Megan Harnett still ring true in my head: “You’re not going to be able to manage all of your email. So be thoughtful about your expectations.”
Fast forward 10 years, and I continue to work with clients to manage their email. We usually begin by considering their particular situations, their aspirations and their realities. Then we devise experiments. I’ve encouraged them to think of this exercise as a work in progress, reminding them that continual tweaks can result in palpable relief.
There’s a heaping handful of home runs that clients have celebrated over the years. So, in the spirit of reflection, I’d like to share what’s worked for individuals, starting with “Cathy C”:
1. Accepting that “housework and email expand to the time allotted”, my client Cathy C adopted a practice that still serves her 9 years later. In a nutshell, when Cathy is working on email, that’s the ONLY thing she’s concentrating on. Likewise, unless an emergency arises, Cathy only opens email in one of its allocated time slots.
Now, getting this system in place took intentional and consistent communication with her team. But it’s sure been effective, and it demands discipline. Cathy, herself, admits this was the most challenging of the six productivity experiments she put into effect in 2014— and the most beneficial.
Ironically, as I was drafting today’s message, I received an email from Cathy’s colleague sharing an article about the digital workplace! Get this: “When you looked at that email inbox for 15 seconds, you initiated a cascade of cognitive changes.” Turns out, Cathy got it right all of those years ago!
Victoria is responsible for many initiatives due to her role in her organization’s commitment to DEI. She found herself inundated with group email threads, which were consuming time and headspace. When Vicky considered some factors, she recognized she could take herself off about half of the group threads. After all, she was CC’d on these communications. By definition, and in reality, she was added truly to keep her in the loop. Since these initiatives were regularly part of a DEI SLT (Senior Leadership Team) meeting agenda, Vicky deemed the email thread redundant. This won her back more than 10% of the time she had previously devoted to email!
Each of these clients was able to employ personal agency over their own email struggles. They also learned to accept that they weren’t going to “solve for email”, but instead to mitigate the load by 10 – 20%.
In next week’s message, I’ll share a couple of impactful email tweaks for teams.
Cheers!
-Deborah
Deborah Goldstein
DRIVEN Professionals / Forbes / Linkedin
info@drivenpros.com | LinkedIn
DRIVEN Professionals, 35 Adrienne Lane, Garrison, NY 10524